


But Not Too Not Familiar

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: Severa:hey do you think those guys look familiar or nahInigo:oh so when I use pickup lines it’s annoying but when you hit on Owain’s whirlwind romance couple it’s okaySevera:shut up it’s not a pickup lineSevera:I mean have we literally run into them beforeOwain frowns. He opens the secret photo he took of Leo and Niles standing at the stove together that morning and squints in the sunlight.I don’t think so,he texts her.I think I would have remembered meeting these two before.His phone buzzes.Severa:whatever





	But Not Too Not Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> It's Spring Break and I'm back with my regularly scheduled Niles/Leo/Odin content.
> 
> Odin goes by Owain here because it's the future and there's no need for a fake name anymore.

Owain wakes up at some indeterminate time the next morning feeling just as warm as when he went to sleep. Light streams in through the window, spilling across the sheets. He pushes himself up on his elbows and gets only an inch above the mattress before two heavy arms laid across his back push him back down. Owain lands face first in the pillows with a soft grunt.

Leo squints through dark lashes at him. Voice thick with sleep, he says, “Going somewhere?”

Owain is very tired and very warm and very aware the nice feeling of Niles plastered against his other side.

“Nope,” Owain says.

He hears Niles hum in approval. Owain closes his eyes.

 

 

 

They meet like this:

Owain is walking out of a shop with a slice of lemon cake in one hand and his phone in the other, saying, “And then—get this— _she’s_ the silent princess the whole time! And did you also know— _oof_.”

The “oof” is when Owain walks into a very handsome man with dark skin and light hair and promptly drops everything he is holding in a moment of distraction.

Owain’s phone falls to the ground where, despite the distance, he can still dimly hear Inigo’s tinny voice questioning what that sudden clatter and Owain’s silence means. The lemon cake quickly follows. It crumbles across the sidewalk.

Owain frowns because he really would have liked to have eaten more before he ruined his lunch. Also he’s not sure if his phone screen is broken or not.

But his mother did raise him with manners, so Owain looks up at this handsome and vaguely familiar man and says, “Aw, jeez, sorry,” because he _does_ know how to talk to people normally, despite what Inigo says.

The man stares back at Owain, looking just as startled to have run into Owain as Owain feels to have run into him. Maybe even more startled, even. His one visible eye is very large. The other is hidden under hair and an eyepatch.

Owain’s leaning down to pick up the phone and the ruined cake when the man says, “Oh no, the fault was all mine.”

There’s something about the man’s voice—cool and a little too even—that gives Owain pause. He brushes it off and picks up his dropped phone. When he raises the phone to his ear, he finds Inigo has already hung up.

The man hasn’t dropped anything of his own. He’s just standing there, looking at Owain like he’s waiting for something, and Owain brushes off the oddity of that in order to toss his ruined cake slice into the nearest trash can and to start to thumb through his miraculously unbroken screen to call Inigo back.

“Wait,” the man says, catching Owain by the arm as Owain takes a few more steps toward the street, out of the man’s way. “Let me buy you another pastry.”

Owain blinks and says, “Oh, I don’t think—”

“I insist,” the man says. 

“It was my fault,” Owain says, frowning, but he finds himself ushered back inside the shop he’s just left anyway, a simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar hand on the low of his back, pushing him along.

The man doesn’t steer him towards the counter, where the line has grown in the thirty seconds since Owain walked out the doors. He steers Owain toward another table instead, where a blond man sits with his nose in a book.

“Leo,” the man purrs, his hand still low on Owain’s back. “Look at who the cat dragged in.”

Leo looks up. Owain catches sight of the title of the book.

“Oh, shit,” Owain gasps without thinking, momentarily forgetting why he’s there. “You’ve got one already? I’ve been looking through stores for _weeks_. Is that a signed copy?” He leans over the table to look.

Owain had preordered the novel weeks before its release, but so had everyone under the sun, apparently. It has been weeks and still no book. Owain has been desperate. The fact that this stranger—Leo—has a copy, even what appears to be a _signed_ copy—

Oh, Owain thinks he’s in love.

He realizes he’s leaning too close over the table when he looks up and sees Leo’s eyes scant inches from his face. Severa’s voice rings out in his head with an annoyed, _“Personal space, dummy!”_ Owain jerks back. The touchy man standing behind Owain catches him with a hand on Owain’s lower back again.

“Ah, sorry,” Owain says sheepishly. “I got too excited for a second there.”

He flashes what he hopes is a friendly smile. Leo stares back in such a way that Owain isn’t sure he pulls it off.

“You’re fine,” Leo says, sounding distracted. His eyes flicker over Owain’s shoulder. “Niles…”

The touchy man’s—Niles’s—hand slips from the small of Owain’s back so Niles can blatantly wrap his arm around Owain’s waist, pulling Owain close enough that they’re shoulder to shoulder. It’s a very forward move. Owain doesn’t particularly mind.

He isn’t stupid. He knows what flirting is, and he may not be like Inigo, who falls half in love with every kind soul he meets, but Owain knows there is something that tugs at his heartstrings every time Niles’s hand shifts to a new place on Owain’s skin. Like a fishhook caught in his chest. So he leaves Niles’s hand where it is and eyes Leo’s book in lieu of saying anything about it.

Leo, meanwhile, looks almost pale, and Owain’s mouth twists at the thought that he’s intruding on something, tugging on his heartstrings or no.

Then Niles shifts, hooking his chin on Owain’s shoulder and he says, in a timber that rattles Owain’s bones, “Why don’t you two get acquainted while I buy you a treat, hmm?”

Leo’s eyes flicker between Niles and Owain. A bit of color creeps back into his cheeks. There’s a look on his face that Owain can’t place, but…

Owain suspects that he may be intruding on something after all, but not in a bad way.

“Just so we’re clear,” he says, feeling bolder than he has in a long time. “Are you guys inviting me into a three-way or—”

Leo makes a noise that sounds a lot like the first syllable of Owain’s name—or maybe just a startled _Oh_ —before he chokes. Owain jolts at the sound. Niles squeezes Owain’s hip. He thinks Niles gives Leo a look, but Owain doesn’t turn his head back fast enough to see.

“Shoot,” Owain says, suddenly unsure again. He’d been wrong, obviously, and that was what boldness got you. “Okay, sorry, that wasn’t what you meant. I’ll go—"

“No!” Leo says much too loudly at the same time Niles squeezes his hip again. The ambient noise of the shop quiets for a moment at the volume of his voice before picking up again. Leo shakes his head and blinks hard, and when he opens his eyes again he looks more composed.

“That won’t be necessary,” Leo says, sounding considerably more collected than a moment ago. “Please forgive me. I simply had a momentary lapse of—” Here there is the briefest of hesitations. Finally Leo settles on: “Memory.”

Owain isn’t sure what that means or if it’s his place to ask. His face feels hot, embarrassed, but Niles hasn’t loosened his grip even once. “I think I misread the situation here.” An understatement, he thinks, pulling away. “Uh, thanks, but—”

“The situation is exactly as it appears to be,” Niles says, letting Owain pull free but lingering close, right as Leo says, “You should stay.”

Niles and Leo look at each other. A million things pass between them before Leo says, “Niles offered to buy you something, right? He’ll go do that now. Let’s sit.”

Leo is already sitting. He means for Owain to sit. A smarter person would probably walk away at this point. Maybe this is a three-way invitation, maybe just a very odd meeting, but Owain still feels strangely bold and even more strangely charmed, so he sits, overcome with curiosity.

Niles leans down and pecks Leo on the temple. Leo absently reaches up and brushes Niles’s cheek, eyes not leaving Owain’s face.

Leo is very handsome too, Owain thinks, now that he’s not worrying he’s interrupting a duo’s date. He might still be, actually, but they seem to want him there, at least. Leo’s version of handsome is different than Niles’s, but not in a way Owain would ever compare the two. He thinks they look good together.

“So,” Leo says after a beat, as though he had been waiting for a cue or prompt that hadn’t happened. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”

Niles walks over to the counter, still well within hearing range, though he isn’t facing them. Owain speaks deliberately, loud enough that he knows Niles can hear without straining.

“It’s Owain,” he says.

“Owain,” Leo repeats, rolling the syllables around in his mouth. He smiles, face softening. “It’s nice to meet you.”

It’s been a weird five minutes—weirder than that time backstage with Cynthia and the hairdryer, surprisingly—but something inside Owain tells him he’s already glad to have met them too.

“Same,” Owain says. He taps the cover of Leo’s book. “You’re Leo, right? How’re you liking this book so far?”

Leo’s mouth twitches, seemingly torn between two conflicting emotions, but it passes so quickly Owain thinks he might have imagined it. Before he can blink, Leo’s mouth settles into a small encouraging smile. Leo speaks.

When Niles returns with a muffin instead of a lemon cake, Owain doesn’t comment. Firstly because he’s completely enamored Leo’s spoiler-free analysis of the opening lines of the book and what the composition means in terms of authorial analysis, and secondly because the muffin is pumpkin which is, coincidently, Owain’s favorite flavor.

Niles sits on Leo’s side of the table when he returns, and while he wraps an arm around Leo’s shoulder as he sits, Niles nudges Owain’s ankle with his toes under the table. Owain isn’t sure Leo notices, but Leo’s fingers keep brushing Owain’s hands whenever they reach out to flip pages in the book, so he doesn’t think Leo minds.

The next two hours pass in the blink of an eye.

 

 

 

When the afternoon bleeds into evening, Owain finds himself at—presumably—Niles and Leo’s apartment. He assumes it’s their apartment, at least. He doesn’t think to ask. The conversation hasn’t stopped for even a moment, and Owain has found himself talking about more books to movies to theatre to what he’s studying to everything under the sun. Leo and Niles soak up information like sunlight, and Owain finds himself bouncing the same questions back at them and then some. He’s more interested in what they have to say than he can remember being interested in anything for a long while—even his favorites things. He can’t be blamed if he doesn’t pay much attention to the scenery in the meanwhile.

The afternoon bleeds into evening which melts into even later evening, and when Owain is invited to spend the night rather than walk the streets after dark, he’s not remotely surprised or tempted to say no.

 

 

 

“You have a birthmark,” Leo says, tracing the brown splotch in the crease of Owain’s elbow, sounding a little amazed.

Owain laughs because it’s so unexpected. “Since I was born,” he agrees.

Leo almost looks like he’s going to say something else, and then Niles’s teeth skim his collarbone and Leo gasps instead.

 

 

 

 **Inigo:**   _wait_ _how’d you meet these guys??_

 _I just told you_ , Owain types, the screen of his phone still a little too dim to see properly in the bright sun. _I literally ran into them at a coffeeshop_

His phone is alight with buzzes, one right after the other.

 **Inigo:** _so you talked with these guys for like an hour or two over coffee and then you went back to their house?_

**Inigo:** _wth_

**Inigo:** _why doesn’t that work for me? I run into lots of people all the time_

His phone buzzes again. A new name in the chat.

 **Severa** : _are you guys kidding me_

**Severa:** _you’d go home with literal strangers? with two creepy dudes who seemed WAY too interested in keeping you there?_

_They weren’t creepy!_ Owain protests. He’s ignored.

**Severa:** _And then you go back to their apartment without telling ANYONE where you are?? or with who??? do you even have their last names???_

**Severa:** _I’m honestly surprised you’re not stuffed like a creepy trophy in their secret murder room or something_

 _And you call me dramatic,_ Owain writes.

**Inigo:** _you have no sense of romance, sev_

**Severa:** _I’m not desperate like you two_

Owain can practically feel her rolling her eyes from here. He pouts.

No text bubbles appear for a long minute and Owain assumes that’s the end of that. After a beat he realizes the silence must have been because Severa was scrolling to look at the picture he sent at the top of the chat because the next message he gets is this:

 **Severa:** _hey do you think those guys look familiar or nah_

**Inigo:** _oh so when I use pickup lines it’s annoying but when you hit on Owain’s whirlwind romance couple it’s okay_

**Severa:** _shut up it’s not a pickup line_

**Severa:** _I mean have we literally run into them before_

Owain frowns. He opens the secret photo he took of Leo and Niles standing at the stove together that morning and squints in the sunlight.

 _I don’t think so_ , he texts her. _I think I would have remembered meeting these two before._

His phone buzzes.

**Severa:** _whatever_

**Severa:** _they probably just remind me of somebody else_

**Inigo:** _can we get back to the topic at hand??_

**Inigo:** _HOW DOES OWAIN HAVE MORE GAME THAN ME????_

**Inigo:** _I wanna meet cute couples in coffee shops!!_

**Inigo:** _I wanna BE part of a cute couple in a coffee shop!!!_

**Severa:** _then be less creepy_

Now it’s Owain’s turn to snort. Severa texts several emojis of faces with mocking tongues sticking out. Inigo sends a picture of himself pretending to cry.

 

 

 

Strangely—but somehow not surprisingly—Niles and Leo keep inviting Owain back, and Owain keeps accepting.

They don’t always touch. After the first night, Owain walks through the door feeling like it’s the most natural thing to do in the world, and Leo and Niles greet him like they find it natural too. They watch movies and Owain falls asleep on the couch and wakes up with either a blanket thrown over him or in their bed, still clothed.  Sometimes Owain reads aloud from his theater homework, acting out all the voices and motions for the parts. Niles usually laughs when he does. Leo doesn’t, but Owain can tell he wants to. He wouldn’t mind if they did. All Owain can do when he’s sharing their space is beam.

He listens to them talk and snark and cook at the stove together and occasionally name people Owain doesn’t recognize. Severa’s right in a way; there is something familiar about the curve of Niles’s grin, the look on Leo’s face when he solves some kind of puzzle, but it’s nothing Owain can place and soon he lets it go.

 

 

 

“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” Owain whispers into Niles’ neck one night. The moon is bright, and so are Leo’s eyes.

Owain doesn’t look up, but he feels the whine in Niles’ throat all the way down to his toes.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't always write in present tense, but sometimes there are fics that just scream that they should be, so I opted to go for it. It wasn't as much of a struggle as writing some fics in present tense are. I originally wanted there to be more snippets than just the few scenes we get here, but I began to run out of steam. I'm pretty happy with where I left it though.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one. Thanks for reading!


End file.
